Background:
Husband, two children 1 and 4
My husband suffers from bipolar disorder or a similar mood disorder (we?ve never been given an exact label). He is on medication and seeing a psychiatrist regularly. However, he has an atypical reaction to many of the drugs he has tried thus far, he and his psychiatrist are still experimenting with different drug combinations and doses. What this translates to, on a day to day level, is that he is mostly depressed, more so in winter. He has abnormal sleep patterns and tends to stay up all night and sleep during the day. We have tried getting him into a more normal sleep pattern but his mood deteriorates when we do so. He spends most of his time playing computer games and reading/posting online. Often, his concentration is very poor and he is often forgetful and oblivious to things happening around him.
I do 95% of the housework and childcare as well as spending a few hours a week working on getting my career started again. I?m not a perfectionist when it comes to housework ? I just do enough to ensure the house is liveable, that we have clean clothes and healthy food to eat. I take as many short cuts as is possible ? we get shopping delivered once a week, for example, and I?ve signed up to an e-mail service that sends out quick and easy recipes for dinner every night. Our children are easy-going enough for the most part and I enjoy spending time with them but, of course, there?s a lot of work in them too and they have their moments when they act up or become irritable.
I love my husband and find it hard to stay angry at him for long but sometimes, the fact that I have to take care of most things at home starts to get me down. I hear other women talk about how their husbands cook them meals and think how wonderful that would be. Even the odd cup of tea made for me would be great but it doesn?t happen. Or a bit of help with the night time routine ? imagine how wonderful it would be if I came down from brushing my son?s teeth to find that the baby had already been changed and was ready for bed! DH does help a bit in that he might keep an eye on one child while I?m doing something for the other (but only at my request). If I want him to do anything more than that, I?ll have to ask him and maybe even nag him so much that it?s easier just to do it myself.
He doesn?t go on holidays with us, he doesn?t go on trips to the park with us, when we moved home I did most of the packing and unpacking and I was the one who changed all the utility bills, any heavy work around the house that I would be incapable of doing, I ask my father or father in law to do it (both our families give us good support, thankfully), DH doesn?t play much with the children as he finds them irritating and hard to deal with a lot of the time (plus he is in bed for a large part of the day). I?ve tried giving him lists of chores to do and so on but it never works out because he forgets or leaves it too late. Arguing with him or expressing my frustration is largely counterproductive as it just adds to the guilt he feels as part of his depression rather than changing his behaviour.
Some days I can handle all this but other days, I find the lack of help from him really wearying and feel that I am like a single parent in many ways. Today, I got mad at him because he had left a mess of take away cartons all over the kitchen for me to find in the morning (he eats junk food every day instead of our family meals). I have enough to do in the mornings, getting the children dressed and fed and our son out to school without this!
I?m not sure what the right thing to do is really. On one hand, I feel like I?m slowly being turned into a skivvy and on the other hand, maybe I?m just being petty and maybe I should just accept that I am a carer of a sick adult as well as looking after two kids and just get on with it. Now that I?ve written all this out, I?m not sure what the point was. I suppose I?d like to hear from others in a similar situation and ask how they negotiate the boundary between needing support themselves and supporting a depressed husband.
Thanks for reading if you?ve got this far. It has just started to snow since I started this and the garden looks so beautiful and Christmassy now. Life isn?t all bad I suppose (must stop blabbering now).
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Mental health
Depressed husband and housework
9 replies
FrancesFarmer · 30/11/2010 10:36
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